


Tragic Memories

by celtic7irish



Series: WinterIron [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Feels, Captain America: Civil War Spoilers, Eventual Tony/Bucky, Everybody Feels, Gen, Glacial even, M/M, Present Tense, Probably in the sequel, Slow Build, Tony Feels, very slow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 00:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8080222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celtic7irish/pseuds/celtic7irish
Summary: “Do you even remember them?”  The words are soft, wounded, threaded with a deep-seated pain that time has not even come close to eradicating.  This wasn’t Iron Man speaking.  It was Tony Stark, demanding and pleading all at once.  Bucky doesn’t know what answer the other man wants, but he offers the only thing he has left to give; he offers the truth.“I remember all of them.”





	

Sequel to: [Desert Memories](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6952450)

 

 

“Do you even remember them?”  The words are soft, wounded, threaded with a deep-seated pain that time has not even come close to eradicating.  This wasn’t Iron Man speaking.  It was Tony Stark, demanding and pleading all at once.  Bucky doesn’t know what answer the other man wants, but he offers the only thing he has left to give; he offers the truth.

 

“I remember all of them.”  _I remember you, too,_ he wants to say.  _Don’t you remember me?_   But bringing up Afghanistan will not help the situation, and so he fights.  He chooses to fight, to protect Steve, to see that he is safe and free.  He will have time to worry about himself – and about Stark – later.

 

Steve tries to reason with him.  “It wasn’t his fault.  Hydra had control of his mind.”

 

“I don’t care,” Tony snarls.  “He killed my mom.”  No mention of his father, or of the fact that Bucky had once tried to capture him and turn him over to Hydra.  Bucky isn’t sure what that means, but there’s no time to think about it now, and he grabs up Steve’s shield, tossing it to him.  The two of them ganging up on the other man seems unfair, but this is life or death, and Bucky’s reasonably sure that Stark will survive their combined attack, when the same can’t be said for himself.

 

When he attempts to remove Stark’s face mask, to cripple the suit or armor, and instead loses his metal arm, it seems right somehow, like penance, and he gasps for breath, his eyes helplessly seeking out Steve.  The blonde idiot won’t give up, not ever, and so neither can he.  Not now.  Not after Steve had fought so hard to protect him.  He might not deserve the other man’s protection, but he would be damned if he let it go to waste.

 

He swings around to strike at Stark, but the other man was waiting for him.  Things after that are kind of a blur until he hits the ground.  He stares up at the cold, uncaring mask of Iron Man, waiting for the strike that would probably end his life, judging by the fury and devastation he had seen in Stark’s eyes just a short while ago.  Just as quickly, Iron Man is thrown off of him, Captain America coming to the rescue.  The Soldier in him wants to use the chance to escape.  Bucky just wants to yell at his friend for being stupid.

 

The awful sound of metal impacting with flesh breaks him out of his daze, and he twists his head around, watching as Steve slams into Stark with the shield, forcing the man to take a step back, within reach.  Without thinking too hard about it, he reaches out and snags Stark’s ankle, forcing the other man off-balance.  Stark twists around and kicks him away, but it gives Steve the opening he needs, and he lifts Stark into the air, using his acceleration against him and slamming him to the ground.

 

Steve’s attack is swift and brutal, the face mask torn away and the shield raised.  Stark lifts his hands to defend himself, but his repulors don’t whine, don’t light up to attack.  For the first time, Bucky realizes that Stark doesn’t want to hurt Steve, no matter what the blonde has done.  Steve’s shield comes down, cutting swiftly through the arc reactor, and Bucky bites back the urge to cry out as the suit winds down, leaving Stark helpless and without power.

 

Steve staggers backwards, his eyes filled with regret as he turns to help Bucky up, the two men leaning on each other for support while Stark struggles to push himself into an upright position.  He looks devastated, betrayed by the one man he’d thought could be counted on to do the right thing, even if it wasn’t the popular thing.  But Steve has made his choice, and there is no turning back now.

 

Stark calls out after them, his voice trembling slightly.  “That shield doesn’t belong to you,” he tells Steve – snarls it through split lips.  “You don’t deserve it!”  Steve takes another step, Bucky following along because he doesn’t have the strength to support himself yet.  Stark’s next words make him hesitate, though, his expression conflicted, though his face is still turned away from the other man.  “My father made that shield!”  His father – Howard Stark.  The man that Bucky had killed on that snow-covered road in December of 1991.

 

Steve drops the shield, and it hits the ground with a clang of finality.  “Come on, Buck,” he says softly, quietly enough that Stark won’t overhear them.  “The others will be here soon.  We need to go.”  Bucky is numb, stumbling along in Steve’s wake until the two of them walk out into the cold Russian winter.  Up on the ridge, the new king of Wakanda is watching them, Baron Zemo unconscious at his feet.

 

He stares at them silently for a moment, and Bucky can feel Steve tense.  He draws away from his friend reluctantly, preparing himself for another fight.  “Tony Stark’s past haunts him,” T’challa says at last, his tone solemn.  “His anger will not be abated so easily.”

 

“We know.”  It’s Bucky who speaks, looking back at the other man steadily.  “It’s okay.”  Stark can hate him; it’s no less than he deserves.

 

T’challa considers him for a moment, then asks, “What will you do now?”

 

Steve shrugs.  “We’ll figure it out.  Right now, we need to leave.  The others will come for him soon.”  Whether he was talking about Bucky or Stark, he didn’t specify, but both are true.

 

T’challa comes to a decision.  “Should you need refuge, please make your way to my home country.  We shall be happy to render assistance,” he murmurs gently, striding down from the ledge and walking past them, heading for Iron Man.  Zemo is restrained and unconscious on the ground behind him, but he doesn’t seem worried about the other man escaping before the army or whoever comes for him.

 

Steve’s jaw works for a moment, and Bucky looks over at him, knowing the struggle going on in Steve’s mind.  He doesn’t hold a grudge against the other man; T’challa had only been trying to avenge his father.  That is one death the Winter Soldier isn’t responsible for, but he’s perpetrated so many others that being blamed for one more hardly registers, regardless of where the actual fault lies.

 

“Thank you,” Steve manages at last.  T’challa pauses for a moment, nodding in acknowledgement before disappearing into the remains of the now-abandoned building.  In the distance, the whir of helicopter blades reaches their ears.  Steve tugs on his arm, and he turns and follows the other man away, the two of them ducking into the surrounding forest.  There’s no time to cover or confuse their tracks, so their best hope is to make their way to the Quinjet nearby.  Bucky’s reasonably sure that Stark hadn’t crippled the jet prior to his arrival; he had come in prepared to help.

 

Bucky frowns.  “What’s a Manchurian Candidate?” he asks Steve. _Manchurian Candidate, you’re killing me.  We’re on a truce.  Put the gun down._

 

The other man turns to look at him, and Bucky grimaces in sympathy; Steve looks like he lost a round with a tank.  Of course, that isn’t far from the truth, he supposes.  “A what?” Steve asks.

 

Bucky shakes his head.  “Never mind,” he mutters, looking up as the clearing where they’d left the Quinjet comes into view.  The jet is right where they left it, and Bucky lets Steve enter first, trusting that even without the shield, he’s less helpless than Bucky with his missing arm right now.

 

Nobody is waiting inside, and Steve starts lift-off procedures, setting their coordinates for Wakanda.  It appears that he will be taking T’challa at his word, though Bucky has no doubt that should the King prove a threat, Steve would fight like hell to get them back out of there.  For his part, though, Bucky doesn’t really care.  In fact, from the way T’challa had spoken, he had seemed to be offering far more than just physical protection.  Wakanda is well known for their advanced scientific capabilities.  Tony Stark might be a genius, but for all of his advances, he doesn’t have the history of the Wakandan Empire.

 

“Bucky?” Steve’s worried voice brings him back to the present.  His words have a near-hysterical tone, which means that he’s probably been trying to get his attention for a while now.  Bucky glances out the window of the quinjet and notices that they’ve made considerable headway.

 

“Yes,” he acknowledges. “Will you go for the others?” Those who had sided with them, who had helped them to escape, given them time to do what they felt – what they knew – needed to be done, they should not be left to their imprisonment.  Not for him.

 

Steve smiles at him, and Bucky can see the pain, the haunting shadows in those blue eyes.  He can’t remember the last time Steve had looked like that, but it still made him cringe internally.  “Yeah, Buck.  Let’s….let’s get you somewhere safe.   Then I’ll go back for the others.  They’ll be okay for a little bit,” he soothes.  Bucky wants to hit him, and he clenches his flesh-and-blood hand into a fist.  It’s just as well that his metal arm is back in that abandoned base, shorn from him by Stark’s armor.  He doesn’t need something that’s made only for killing.

 

As the quinjet continues to Wakanda, Bucky looks out the window next to him, his eyes seeking out the last location of a man that he’ll probably never see again. 

 

It is, perhaps, for the best. He should never have been allowed near him in the first place.  This, then, will be his penance.  Loneliness, and the knowledge that he will never have a chance to make things right.

 

Swallowing thickly, he turns away, staring out the front windows towards the horizon.  He cannot change the past, and he cannot look forward to the future.  So he will do as he has always done; he will live in the here and now, for as long as he is able.  And Tony stark will continue to live.

 

He can hope for nothing more.

**Author's Note:**

> So this story was never supposed to happen, but I wrote Desert Memories as part of the WinterIron Spring Fling, and then I watched Civil War, and this just sort of happened. I had no say in it. Why it's in the present when the other one is not, I have no idea. ^^
> 
>  
> 
> Lesson of the Day: The Manchurian Candidate (1959), by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent U.S. political familywho is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy.


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